


Choosing Defiance

by Sereq_ieh_Dashret



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anarchy, Canon Disabled Character, Dark Side Positivity, Declarations Of Love, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Extended Families, Families of Choice, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Light BDSM, Loyalty, M/M, Magic, Maul is a BAMF, Maul is disabled, Mental Health Issues, Nightsisters (Star Wars), Past Child Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Past Sexual Abuse, Physical Disability, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Rap Battles, Sex Magic, Slam Poetry, The Dark Side of the Force, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:47:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23517907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sereq_ieh_Dashret/pseuds/Sereq_ieh_Dashret
Summary: During the last days of Dathomir, Maul realises that living by Sidious's rules is pointless and that both he and his nearest and dearest deserve better from what little borrowed time is left for them. Gar Saxon in particular, as it turns out.Dathomirian magic is powerful, especially on the night of a Choosing, and some things are just meant to be.This is an AU of my Clone Wars/ Rebels AU Two Against the Empire, which branches at the flashback scene in Ch13.You don't need to read TAE to understand this.Fluffy and smutty.Might grow extra chapters.
Relationships: Darth Maul/Gar Saxon, OMC/OFC
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Choosing Defiance

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Two Against the Empire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15204749) by [Sereq_ieh_Dashret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sereq_ieh_Dashret/pseuds/Sereq_ieh_Dashret). 



> WARNINGS: explicit content, explicit language, BDSM undertones, light bondage, referenced impotence, discussion of disability, referenced past sexual abuse of a child, negative self-talk, assistive devices, genital prosthetics, alternate take on the Dark Side of the Force.

They have been at it for what seem like hours, and yet, in spite of his initial misgivings, Maul finds himself wishing that the night will never end.

The air is thick with the scent of flowers and loam and swirls with magic, with the Living Force... he doesn't even know how to call it anymore.

He used to have all the answer once, but now the Galaxy has fractured in a myriad of mysteries that beckon, of questions that beg to be answered.

He used to know who he was, what he was and what his destiny would be, but most of the pillars of his existence have crumbled to ash and dust, leaving him to drift, almost unmoored.

Almost.

He has his mother, who always searched for him, who never gave up on him and healed him body and mind even though it would probably have been better just to put him out of his misery, who alway treats him like he's still worth any pain even though he's just a crazy, crippled failure of a Darksider. 

He has his ori'ramikad who have stuck with him even though it would have been easier to just leave him to rot in Sidious' clutches, who consider him one of them and would follow him to hell and back and face any odds with a smile on their face and a song on their lips.

He has a family, a clan, a tribe, a place where people are invested in his continued existence in spite of all his failures, who will fight by his side and give their lives to make sure that Sidious pays for what happened to him and Savage, who would not abandon him even after his plans have been thwarted, even though they paid the price in blood.

He doesn't know how to feel about that. 

He's never been anything but alone before Savage found him, and even then he could always pretend that they were just master and apprentice (even though the label fot them wrong in ways he had never dared to acknowledge until it was far too late to matter).

Now even that thin pretence has dissolved. 

The warriors from Death Watch who swore themselves to him are more than just troops, the Nightpeople are more than just allies who happen to be related to him by blood. 

The Force itself swirls differently all around them, as if it was a net of which all of them are mere knots. He doesn't know how it has happened or why, but that doesn't change the fact that it has happened.

They belong to him like no one else before. They are his to lead and command, but also his to protect and take care of.

No matter how he tries to fight against this alien urge, this twisted instinct that goes against everything he has ever been taught, it is never really silenced, and at this stage he is too tired, too drained, too broken to fight it.

He was never a Sith, never more than a weapon, a tool that has exhausted its function, all his supposed destiny was nothing but the lie of a man who had never really felt anything but contempt for him, who abused and tortured him for his own gain and pleasure, who had every opportunity to save him and yet left him to die a lonely, lingering, painful death, who watched him go insane and laughed.

He was never a Sith, so he's not beholden to the awful sodding rules Sidious had beaten into him. As if rules even made sense to a sect whose creed recited that chains should be broken and clamoured for absolute freedom and anarchy and the rest.

No, Sidious might be powerful and resourceful, but he's no longer his puppet, and he's not going to dance on the strings the bastard himself severed when he left him to rot.

Sidious doesn't leave loose ends behind him and sooner or later he's going to come for them at full strength. Their fate is balance, perhaps already sealed, whether he gives in to that urge or not. He doesn't know how much time they have left, but he's not going to waste it pretending that sucking up to his former captor is going to make things better for anyone.

If he has to die for real this time, he will die a free man. He is going to know what it feels to have a place to call home, he's going to know what it feels to belong.

He's not going to pretend that his people mean nothing to him, he's not going to let them die without knowing, he can't do this again.

He's not the only one. In the last few weeks the tribe has had more Choosing rituals than in an entire year, including one between a Sister and one of Death Watch's squad leaders. Faced with the imminence of the end, people want to declare their affections for all to see, they want to live in bliss and defy death with their wild happiness.

Case in point, his cousin Raze and Jana, who have been together for years without ever asking the Elders to hold a Choosing for them.

Draped in his bulky sheperd's cloak in spite of the heat, Raze looks even more rail-thin than his normal gauntness. His ochre-and-sepia skin is coated in a sheen of sweat and his greenish-brown eyes flash wide in the darkness, but he stands ramrod straight as the sheperd's staff clenched in his fist, swaying gently to the ipnotic rythm of the lyres and the drums as rhyme after ryme pour from his patterned lips.

He was never a fighter, but his poetry is good enough to make grown men weep or wild animals stop and listen, or so his cousins swear, and now, after listening to him for a while, Maul is starting to believe that there is at least hint of truth to their claims.

The other contestants, friends and kinspeople who have stepped up to offer Raze some kind of challenge, are being eliminated one after the other, as soon as they fail to come up with a witty riposte to his compositions. They try, but they are not even in the same league. Except one.

Gar Saxon, his second-in-command, the skald of Death Watch. He stands next to Raze in the sacred grove, tall and proud even without his beskar, moon-pale hair glowing golden in the light of the fire, storm-grey eyes sparkling with challenge and enjoyment. He claps his hands to the beat of the drums amd laughs to the taunts and provocations of the other contestants, but never, ever misses a beat. Words flow flawlessly from his lips, precise and cutting like the slash of a knife. Maul has long known how gifted his first liutenant is with them, he's heard him recite the now-forbidden sagas of the ancestors time and time again, his sonourous baritone rich with the knowledge of centuries, passed down generation after generation, but this... this is different, raw and unpolished and yet powerful, words used like weapons, and Gar is a master.

The Elders nod and cheer, pleasantly surprised at the performance, but Saxon barely looks at them. No, when he looks towards the audience it is always towards the bench on the side of the main dais where Maul is sitting, as if his judgement was the only one that counted, his approval and enjoyment the only accolade that mattered.

His gaze feels heavy on Maul's skin, like the pressure of Mandalore's too-bright yellow sun, something not unpleasant but utterly impossible to overlook.

Soon all the other contestants give up or are eliminated when they cannot keep up. Only the two of them are left, dancing around each other with strophes and rhymes, circling, feinting, waiting for the killer blow that will leave one of them the victor.

Even though neither of them is Forceful in the way most people intend it, the Living Force swirls and eddies like green smoke around them, gathering power and momentum as if rushing towards some sort of grand finale.

It feels intoxicating and between that, the hypnotic rythm of the drums and the sticky-sweet smell of the herbs the Sisters have thrown on the fires, Maul cannot help but feel a bit light-headed as if he had drunk a bit too much brandy.

He wants to feel this moment of beauty and magic and kinship. It might be one of the last ones left for all of his people to experience and he wants to feel all of it.

Years of training and abuse have taught him to make himself small, almost invisible in the Force until the right moment to strike, to keep it contained and close to his chest, to steer away from other Forcefuls and always keep to himself, so it takes a bit of effort, but finally he manages to unfurl it enough to be able to connect to the bustling spiritual landscape all around him and take it all in.

For a moment time stands still as he basks in the revelation, then a quiet, wry chuckle escapes him. This is what he has been always denying himself, then. All this emotion, all this presence, all this life... it is almost as if he'd always seen the world in black and white and now he was seeing in colour for the first time, almost as if he'd reawakened a sense he'd lost due to unuse.

He can feel the ground below his feet thrum with life, the trees and the foliage hum with the joy and terror of living, the sparks of consciousness of the insects and birds and other small animals flitting around the gathering.

He can sense each of the people gathered around the sacred clearing, he could count them with his eyes closed if he wanted to, and not just that. He can discern them, touch them with his Force and know them.

Raze feels like family, like bloodkin, alike in so many ways, safe and reassuring, almost like Savage (but not quite, never like him) but Gar...

Touching his Force to him feels almost like touching a live flame, so intense that it takes his breath away. It is charged with something far more visceral and intoxicating than mere allegiance and loyalty, something that he has no words or explanation for, but hits him like a punch to the gut anyway at the first brush.

Maul reels back in confusion, hearts pumping frantically, mouth suddenly dry and a fluttering feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

His frayed nerves welcome the lack of whatever that burning, drowning, terrifying feeling was, but there is a part of him that wants it back, that wants more of it, all of it, that wants to bask in it even as it burns him to ashes.

What has happened? What the hell has just happened?

A commotion rips him out of his contemplation. The audience clamours: Gar Saxon has faltered. His voice has broken and fallen silent right in the middle of a couplet and now the tall, proud Mando seems at a complete loss for words, as if his world had tilted on his axis just like Maul's has.

His gaze searches that of his liutenant, looking for a clue, an explanation of what has just passed between them. Their gazes meet for a moment and Gar Saxon freezes completely, paling under his flush, before he looks away and haltingly resumes a strophe. 

He regains confidence with every word, but Raze has finally sensed his opening and makes his final move, hammering him with couplet after couplet. Even unbalanced and shaken, Gar fights bravely to the end but only lasts a couple more minutes before having to concede his defeat.

A roar of applause rises from the audience 

The Brothers lift Raze up on their shoulders and carry him around the clearing in triumph, chanting his name and eventually deposit him in front of the Elders and of Jana to receive a final blessing and a crown of flowers before Jana drags him away, among a chorus of whistles, ululations and lewd suggestions which the Elders happily join.

Among the confusion he sees Gar slinking silently off to one side with Rook, as the two of them often do, perhaps to soothe his wounded pride with some brandy. 

Maul watches him walk away, tired and defeated, his face flushed with exertion, his pale hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. 

"It's my fault," he thinks.

If he had not distracted him, Gar wouldn't have lost, not even to Raze Silvertongue, not even tonight. Even though in fact he was always meant to. And if he had not... would have Jana been alright with the trade? Somehow Maul cannot imagine it, and the mere idea of seeing him dragged away by her, or by anyone else, really, fills him with anger and makes his hearts ache fiercely.

Some strange instinct stirs inside him, urging him to run to him, to grab hold of Gar and pull him back to the light and somehow make sure that everybody knows what the Force already does, that Gar bloody Saxon, skald and lieutenant of his ori'ramikad, second to none in bravery and loyalty, belongs to him, to stake his claim just as unequivocally as Raze and Jana have just staked their mutual one.

It takes all his hard-won self-control and focus to fight that incomprehensible urge and prevent it from taking complete control, and even so he can't help but walk towards them, slowly and with an appearance of calm, yes, but inevitably. 

"It's the ritual. Whatever happened here is influencing us because he swore himself to me." he tells himself as he walks, hearts thumping madly in his chest.

But Rook has sworn herself too and yet the urge isn't there, a part of him whispers maddeningly.

It is the smoke of the herbs, the beat of the drums, a stray effect of his mother's magic, or worse, the Other, still lurking in the darkness in spite of his mother's efforts, now rising like a predator in search of blood, just like when he fought with Kenobi, just like when he dreamed of exacting revenge, of painting that pale pink skin crimson and purple with blood and bruises, of hearing that smooth voice break in screams and sobs and beg him for mercy.

Gar turns towards him, as if he too had felt a disturbance and was looking for its source and for a moment they just stare at each other in silence under Rook's watchful eyes.

The urge roars in his ears, loud like the engine of the Gauntlet, pushing, pushing, pulsing inside his whole body, making his skin feel too tight, too hot. His hands shake so badly he has to ball them into fists to hide it.

He wants to say something, anything, but the words tangle uselessly in his mind because he really doesn't know how to express this, he doesn't even know what it is, but he knows that if he lets this moment pass without doing anything it will never come back, and they're all living on borrowed time anyway, and it's terrifying, but he doesn't want to regret walking away from this. 

Whatever this might be, he knows it's important, precious, irreplaceable.

Rook fidgets impatiently at the egde of his view, shifting her weight from one foot to another. She doesn't know what to do with this strange, silent confrontation, and he can tell that it unnerves her.

He only has instants before she brings this strange liminal moment to an end and drags them both back to a normality where this has no place, where all there is between them is an oath of fealty and allegiance between a commander and his soldier.

He has to act now, but he's scared. Scared of the consequences of just letting go of discipline and following what he desires, scared that perhaps he's just misunderstood everything and Gar doesn't feel this urge, this hunger, scared that he'll hurt him and break him like he does with everything, like Sidious did to him.

"No, I am not Sidious," a part of him whispers, quiet but firm like a deep-rooted knowledge.

"I am the Manda'lore of Death Watch. Gar bent his knee and pledged himself to me. And I pledged to lead and protect him from all enemies and calamities. I don't hurt those who are mine. This is who I am."

The words of his oath of investiture flow out of his lips, almost like a reflex.

"I will lead you out of hardship and into glory, from hunger into abundance, from servitude into freedom. While you stand by me I will be your sword and your beskar'gam, no being shall lift a hand on you with impunity. While you keep your faith, your pain shall be my pain, your joy my joy, because you are mine and I am yours," he recites quietly.

It's a pretty standard lordly oath, but now he cannot help but notice how similar it to a Choosing vow it sounds.

It feels right to say those words to Gar once again and mean them. Because now he knows with absolute clarity that he means them to the bitter end.

For a moment his liutenant looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a speeder, eyes wide, pupils blown out so large that only a sliver of grey is visible around it.

"D-do you mean it?" he manages to ask, eventually.

Maul nods, not trusting his voice in a moment like this, and his expression transfigures into that of a man dying of thirst who is finally offered a cup of water. Gratitude, yes, but mostly raw, fierce need. 

(and he would know about it: food wasn't too hard to find on Lotho Minor, if one wasn't too fussed about taste, hygene or, Force forbid, ethics, but clean, drinkable water... let's just say he had killed without hesitation for that)

Oh Force, he looks beautiful like that...

"Then no idle oath has Saxon sworn: I am your man for as long as I have life, and wherever you go, we both will travel. We'll walk together from now on, even on our last march," Gar declares, his voice firm and sonorous once more. 

The words are martial, but there is something in the way he says them, in the way he looks at him, that gives them a completely different meaning.

That is the way Raze was looking at Jana, he realizes. 

No one has ever looked at him like that. He's inspired fear and submission before, righteous anger and desire for retribution, but never passion or desire, never love.

Yes, that's what it is. Love. He mulls the concept in his head, trying to wrap his head around it. 

Family love he can understand, it's a biological imperative after all, loyalty and camaraderie too, as oftentimes they are what keep soldiers alive in the time of danger, but this... he's never thought he would experience it and yet what animates Gar's Force-signature, faint as it is, is exactly mirrored in his own.

He loves Gar. Looking back at their behaviour towards each other, it is pretty obvious in hindsight, but a part of him is still holding its breath, waiting for the rest of him to catch up with this and have a fit, to push Gar away and run as far as possible in the other direction.

It braces for the explosion, but it never comes. He is fine with this, he is fine with caring, with wanting and being wanted, with tearing his barriers down and letting Gar come close enough to hurt him.

He knows he won't. He has always trusted him with his life, he can trust him now with his hearts.

"Gar..." he calls quietly, taking a step closer, well within touching range.

"My Lord..." Gar responds 

Maul tries not to flinch, but fails miserably.

"Don't call me that." he orders, far more sharply than he had intended, but Gar only nods, his storm-grey eyes full of understanding.

"What should I call you, then?" he asks.

His tongue darts out to wet his lips and Maul has to employ every ounce of his residual self-control to stay still when every fiber of his being howls with the need to claim him.

"My name. Say it." he rasps.

"Maul..." Gar's voice is quiet, hoarse and thick with need.

He's never been too fussed about his name.

For a long time he didn't even know if it was his real one or not (he had never though that the naming conventions of his birth culture would be so... different) and considered it just a convenient identifying label, but now, hearing Gar speak it like this... it just makes his whole lack of self-control predicament even worse.

He grabs the lapels of Gar's tunic and suddenly the distance between them disappears almost completely. 

Almost.

He wants nothing more than to press his body against Gar's, to kiss him and touch him and burn with him in this firestorm of need, but he can't. Not yet. He needs to give him the choice to say no and hear him say yes first.

He needs to ask, but words seem too hard to parse right now, too unwieldy for his mouth and too overwhelming for his mind.

A frustrated whine threatens to escape him, but he bites it back, trying to concentrate.

"Gar..." he manages and that is all, but perhaps it is enough.

His liutenant searches his gaze with his own. His large, cool hands brush against his ribs, and even through that barest touch, Maul can feel that they are trembling. The two-part beat of his human heart thunders in his chest, desperately fast.

"Yes..." he says "Please..."

It's not just the words, it's the tone. Breathless, vulnerable, needy.

Gar is strong, handsome, brave and faithful to the Resol'nare, he's all a Mando'ad could desire from a partner. He could have anyone he wanted, and yet he wants him.

It's headier than victory, more satisfying than a kill.

"Mine..." he thinks and presses his lips against Gar's, as gently as he can.

He tastes like smoke and salt and brandy and his mouth is shockingly warm and soft against his.

He cannot help but moan and that's when Gar realises he has no idea of what he's doing and mercifully takes the lead, a low growl rumbling in his chest.

Oh Force... he manages to think. He doesn't really know what is going on, he's just responding to what Gar is doing, but it feels... amazing. No better than amazing. Absolutely beyond words.

Gar's mouth is devouring his and his hands are everywhere, tracing paths of warmth and electricity all over his skin. His shirt is gone, he has absolutely no idea what happened to it, and to be honest he doesn't care. 

Who needs shirts now anyway? he thinks. 

His hands are balled in the fabric of Gar's so tight that he can feel it give way. It only takes a little bit more torque and it rips to shreds. The sound of it is intensely satisfying, but the noise Gar makes it is even better.

He mewls, honest to the Force, and the sound goes straight to where his groin used to be, making something in his brain short out.

He might not know the first thing about relationships or romance, but one thing he knows with absolute clarity: he needs to have Gar naked and writhing under him right now, or he might burst in frustration.

"Guys! What...?!" Rook's voice intrudes, grinding like sand between cogs.

Maul breaks the kiss and growls, low and menacing.

He's on the verge of turning around and doing something he'd later regret, but Gar is quicker.

His fingers pinch one of Maul's nipples and twist and the feeling, not quite pain, blinding bright, nearly brings him to his knees and makes him momentarily forget anything except how badly he wants to feel that again.

"Just go, Rook, for the sake of the gods!" Gar shouts.

"You sure?" she has the audacy to ask, even though her voice shakes.

"I am. I want this. I want him." Gar declares.

That's it. Audience or no audience, he can't wait any longer.

Guided by an instinct he didn't even know he possessed, he pulls Gar down on the soft grass of the clearing and pushes the shreds of his shirt off his shoulders, pausing for a moment to admire his handiwork.

His eyes are wide and dark, his lips swollen from their kisses and his hair mussed and wild. His creamy pale skin is flushed slight pink with heat and excitation but it still feels cool and soothing compared with his own, smooth over hard muscle. A smattering of blond-red hair is scattered on his chest and runs in a tantalising line down from his navel, disappearing under the waistband of his trousers, drawn taut over his large, thick erection. Freckles are scattered on the broad expanse of his shoulders, and later, when the need to take, claim, have is not so burning, he fully intends to kiss each one of them, but now his attention is captured by the dusky pink buds of his nipples, peaked tight.

"Would it feel good for him too?" he wonders.

Tought transforms almost immediately into action and Gar's entire body jolts with pleasure, arching under his touch.

"Fucking hell, yes!" he exclaims, cursing with beautiful abandon when he does it again.

Maul crashes his mouth back against his, devouring it for a brief moment before moving to his chin, pleasantly rough with a hint of stubble, and his neck which Gar bares willingly in complete, unresisting submission.

Gar smells clean and homey, faintly like the laundry detergent they use on the Gauntlet and beskar and something undefinable that is only him and he wants to kiss, taste, claim every inch of him. 

If this is the only time they can have this, he won't hold anything back. He will give Gar all he has left of himself to give, if only the ghosts of the past will allow him.

A part of him is on the lookout as he drags his mouth lower and lower down Gar's torso, waiting for the memories of what Sidious forced upon him to flood his mind, but even if his actions are somewhat similar, the context is so different that he can barely draw a comparison.

This time he's not held down and forced by a man who's more interested in his pain and humiliation than his own pleasure, he's doing this willingly, gladly, and Gar is happy to give up his control and let him take charge of things, of him.

A torrent of ecncouragement and praise pours from Gar's lips, his voice grows hoarser and hoarser with every kiss, lick and nip, his hands are warm and surprisingly gentle as they smooth down every bit of him they can reach without holding, without trapping, letting him set the pace and the limits.

Gar knows. He's never told him, he's never told anyone, but somehow Gar knows and accepts it. Deep inside, he is sure that if he freaked out and decided to stop right there, Gar wouldn't fault him for it, he wouldn't push him to go further, even though it would be beyond frustrating.

Good thing he's not planning to stop until they have experienced it all.

His hands struggle briefly with Gar's trousers then they go the same way as his shirt, ripped down the front in one powerful yank that elicits another startled/pleased, delightfully vulnerable noise.

Gar's cock springs free, thick and long and hard, flushed dark with blood.

The temptation to tell him that it is the most beautiful cock he's ever seen flashes briefly through his mind, but he squashes it ruthlessly. It's not much of a compliment if his only term of comparison is Sidious' shriveled, disgusting dick.

He has other ways of showing Gar how much he appreciates it, and all the rest of him.

The first touch is tentative, a barely-there brush against the silky-smooth, burning hot, throbbing flesh and yet Gar's voice twists into a strangled groan.

"Good?" Maul manages to ask, surprised he can still verbalise.

Gar's only answer is a frantic nod and another yelp when he does it again.

"More?"

"Gods, yes! Please, please!" he begs and Maul is only too happy to oblige.

His fingers wrap around his shaft, squeezing tentatively, then pumps his fist slowly up and down, while his other hand toys with the coarse patch of reddish hair at the base of his cock, with the smooth skin of his inner tighs, with his balls and Gar rewards every exploration with new breathless sounds of pleasure and submission, with helpless jerks and twitches of his hips, increasingly more desperate.

Clear fluid starts beading at the tip of him, trickling down his length.

"Sorry, I'm sorry..." Gar gasps, but Maul barely hears him.

An idea has just blossomed inside his mind. It's a bad, reckless, idiotic idea, one that has a high chance of dredging up all sorts of traumatic memories and bringing their moment to a crashing halt, but at the moment the rewards for putting it in practice seem to far outweigh the risks and it's not like he's arrived where he is through a chain of sensible life choices.

No, he has gotten to this moment by taking risks and giving himself up to the Dark Side of the Force, by taking challenges head-on and letting will and passion push him to alter his reality and overcome his limitations.

He won't be fixed or healed if he does this, but he will be better, freer.

And Force, if Gar makes this beautiful, maddening sounds after a few hesitant caresses... he's pretty sure he can make his liutenant scream if he goes ahead with this madcap plan and goes down on him.

There, he said it, at least to himself, and conceptualisation makes it feel more real.

Slowly, deliberately, he brushes his thumb over the weeping head of Gar's cock, catching a droplet as it forms, and brings it to his mouth.

A string of curses explodes out of Gar's mouth and his hands ball into fists in the grass, tearing it by the handful.

Maul can feel the wave of want, of desire, surging from him, can tell how much he wishes to be taken, used, rendered helpless by him. 

"Do you always submit like this to all your lovers?" he asks with an apparence of calm even as he squeezes Gar's cock as hard as he dares.

Gar manages to snort out a laugh.

"I don't. This is for you. Only for you..." and perhaps he would say more, but Maul silences him with a hard, bruising kiss.

"I'm going to tie your hands. Is that alright?" he asks, panting for breath, once he breaks the kiss.

Gar's eyes go even more dark and wide with desire.

"Yes, oh gods, yes..." he pleads, nodding frantically.

He tears a pair of strips from the tatters of Gar's shirt and wraps them around his wrists and elbows, tying them securely, but loosely enough not to hurt him. It's probably not the most secure way of trussing up a man of Gar's size and build, but the act is more symbolic than practical, a materialisation of the fact that Gar is giving up all control to him.

It looks good too. Bound like this, all wide eyes and flushed skin and trembling limbs, at his mercy, Gar looks even more lovely.

"You look amazing... Are you comfortable, though?" he asks.

Gar nods.

"Comfortable enough." he replies.

"Look, you don't have to do it if you don't want to..." he adds a moment later as if could read his mind and know what he plans to do. He's thinking so hard about it that it wouldn't even be that difficult.

"I know. I know..." Maul replies.

He tries to smile. He has so little experience with it that it probably comes out as a grimace, but Gar smiles back, soft and full of affection.

"I need you to do another thing for me," Maul dares to add then.

He is kneading the strong muscles in his liutenant's tighs, brushing close to his cock but not quite touching.

He needs him reasonably sober, enough to understand him and consent.

"Anything. Anything you need." Gar replies, panting for breath.

"I... I need you to scream for me." he feels self-conscious in saying it, but Gar doesn't laugh or grimace. He just listens intently, letting him finish.

"I need to know that you want it. That you're enjoying it. I need to hear your voice."

So I know that you are you, the man I care for and who cares for me, and not someone else.

He doesn't say that, but he's pretty sure Gar understands anyway.

"I won't hold back," he promises.

Maul manages another, less uncertain smile.

"I am counting on it..." he whispers, bravado masking how nervous he is.

His hands shake as he slides them upwards, smoothing over jutting hip-bones and quivering abs. He wraps his left around the base of Gar's cock and leans in, until it twitches with every puff of his breath, until he can drag his tongue over the slit in the swollen purplish head.

Gar moans loudly. He tastes bitter and sweet and salty, but his voice feels like pure honey as he begs for more.

And he gives it to him. He kisses and licks and tastes every inch of him, swallows him as deep as he can, until he's almost choking on his beautiful, thick cock, and he screams, his name at first and then breathless, wordless pleas, increasingly more frantic and desperate. He's making him sound like that. 

"Oh, gods... I am going to..." Gar keens, half-alarmed.

Probably he meant it as a warning for him to stop, but he happily ignores it, taking him harder, faster, opening himself up to the Force as wide as he can, and his release floods all his senses, like a blinding light, like an explosion, like an earthquake of which their joined bodies and Force are an epicentre.

When it is over, Maul sits there in the clearing, shaking and shivering even as he unties Gar's arms and rubs soothing circles on strained muscle as his lover comes down from his peak. His plan to ride Gar's high to his own (mental? spiritual?) completion has backfired spectacularly: now he is so wired he might explode, and yet he can still feel nothing where his pelvis used to be.

All the need, all the desire trapped inside him with nowhere to go feels like a nexu trapped in a cage far too small for it.

He thought he was over it, but now the urge to kill Kenobi, to kill him slowly and make him suffer, returns in full force because he's taken this from him. 

It's torturous, awfully, fucking unbearable to want something so much and to be denied so completely.

He needs to leave soon, to go out in the rainforest and get it all out by destroying something.

"Are you... is everything alright?" Gar asks, still breathless.

"I am fine," Maul lies and it's not even a good lie, judging from the frown that appears on his liutenant's (his lover's) brow.

"I am not mad at you, Gar," he reassures, tangling trembling fingers with his.

"Then what's going on?" Gar insists, stubborn as usual, but that is an answer that Maul doesn't know how to give.

Admitting weakness, any kind of weakness, is not something he's ever allowed himself and even now that he's decided to break all of Sidious' tyrannical rules there is a part of him that balks at the thought, no matter how many times Gar has proved himself trustworthy and caring.

Life has proven to him once more that he cannot have good things, not for real, and the feeling of being pathetic and useless and broken has returned in full force.

"Hey, it's alright. We're alright," Gar whispers soothingly, pulling him close and placing a kiss at the corner of his mouth.

"It's just you an me here. We're safe," he adds.

Maul forces himself to take a deep breath and let it go slowly letting his body relax in the circle of his arms.

Maybe this is enough. Maybe it can be, he thinks, but of course Gar has other ideas and his hands start smoothing down his torso, heading in a dangerous direction and all his worries return in full force.

He has to say it, but how?

"Let me do something for you. Let me make you feel good," Gar whispers, oblivious of his predicament or perhaps attributing his sudden tensing to first-time nerves.

A frustrated noise escapes him. He wants to, Force, he craves it with frightening intensity, but he can't.

"You can't," he manages to rasp, squeezing his eyes shut so he won't see the disappointed look in his eyes.

Gar takes his words in silence but doesn't let go, doesn't push him away. Thank the Force for small mercies.

"Have I... have I done something wrong?" he asks eventually and his voice has turned small and trembling.

"Have I displeased you? Is that why you don't...?" he continues.

"What?! No!" Maul blurts out. 

Displease him? When he's just given him the best experience of his entire sodding life? It doesn't make any sense.

"It's not that I don't want it, Gar. I want it so badly it hurts, but I... I can't,"

There, he said it. End of the argument, and of their time together, most likely.

"Why?" Gar has the gall to ask, as if it wasn't bloody fucking obvious, as if it wasn't already humiliating enough.

Maul yanks his pelvic panel open and his stripy, plastic simulacrum of a dick dangles out, limp like a long-dead fish.

"Why, you ask? Because if this thing didn't stand up while you were screaming my fucking name so loud my mother has probably heard it from the Mountain Temple, it won't ever!" he yells, but not even that seems to give his bloody stubborn liutenant pause.

"Did you take the safety out?" he insists.

Maul blinks in confusion.

"The what?!"

"The safety,"

"It's a dick, not a bloody weapon," he spits.

Gar lets out a quiet, brief laugh, part genuinely amused, part embarrassed, but definitely not worried about his outburst.

"You're not wrong, but look, my first boyfriend when I was a teen, he was... his body didn't match his Manda so he had one of these too and, well... he told me that most people prefer it not to be on all the time so... yeah, until you defeat the safety, it won't, you know... It won't come out and play, so to speak," he tries to explain, uncharacteristically hesitant and inarticulate.

His face is so flushed that it almost glows in the dark.

Maul feels a surge of hope bubble through but tries to stay calm and detached. One thing is a teenage transboy who still has all of his nerve endings and things and just needs a bit of mechanical help, another is someone who's missing bits of his spine and basically everything else from the hips down. Force knows if he even still has the bits to connect a neural interface to.

"It might not work anyway, Gar," he tries to warn.

"I know, and it won't change anything if it doesn't. But it might. And we'll never know until we try," Gar retorts, placing a soft, chaste kiss on his lips.

We. Somehow they have become a we. Force...

"A-alright," he whispers, forcing back the sudden, senseless tears that threaten to spill.

His fingers hover over a discreet recessed button on his inner tigh. He's never asked Ilan what it is for, but in hidsight it cannot be anything but what Gar was talking about.

Here goes nothing, he thinks. His hands shake pitifully but the barest pressure is sufficient to depress the button.

For a long moment nothing happens. Maul bites back a surge of disappointment. He's trying to find the words to tell Gar that he had told him so, but he doesn't blame him for trying when with a pneumatic hiss and a discreet gurgle of fluids, sensation floods into him, sudden, jarring awareness of a supplementary body part and urgent, burning arousal.

A strangled sound, halfway between a surprised yell and a moan, escapes his mouth.

His hands fly to Gar's shoulders, gripping them with desperate strength. He needs something to anchor him or he fears he'll just disintegrate under the onslaught.

His whole body shakes as if he had a burning high fever.

"Gar..." he calls and he can barely recognise his voice.

He's never felt so vulnerable, but somehow it doesn't feel wrong, not when Gar is shaking just as hard and is holding him just as tight.

"Shh... it's alright. It's OK. I've got you. I'll take care of you," he whispers, placing soft, gentle kisses all over his face and neck, everywhere he can reach.

His right hand traces slowly down his chest and that is enough to send another spike of feeling down there, just in anticipation of his touch and he's tempted to tell him to stop because it's already overwhelming as it is and he doesn't know whether he can stand anything more, but Gar is cursing softly in his ear and words seem to have lost all meaning and he wants this, wants it too much to care about his sanity, such as it is, and Gar's hand closes around him, gentle but firm and all coherent thought flies out of his head with an incoherent shout.

"Yes! Yes! Like this, my love, let me hear how much you like it..." Gar encourages.

His hand glides up and down his length and he can't help the inarticulate, sobbing noises he makes or the way his fingers dig in Gar's shoulders hard enough to bruise and his hips cant into his touch in a wordless demand for faster, harder, more. All his world is reduced to the touch of Gar's hands on his not-flesh and the sound of his voice whispering, telling him how beautiful he is like this and how good it feels to make him feel good, encoraging him to let go and hold nothing back.

He does. He can't help it.

It feels like he's a wave, cresting higher and higher, soaring to dizzying, vertiginous heights, like the pleasure that Gar is giving him is the only thing that exists.

He doesn't now how long that moment stretches, it feels like forever and no time at all, but then the balance tips. It could have been the way Gar twists his wrist, or the way he asks, no pleads him to come for him, he doesn't know. All he knows is that the wave crashes, all at once, releasing all that stored energy, and it feels like Sith lightning in reverse: pleasure beyond words, beyond comprehension.

He can't think, can scream, can barely breathe as it courses through him, he can only hold on to Gar and let it take over and erase everything else in a wash of light.

When the world congeals back into coherence, an unquantifiable while later, he's lying on his back on the soft grass of the clearing and Gar is stretched next to him, close enough that he can feel the heat radiating from his bare skin, but not quite touching. 

It's a sub-optimal state of things, but when he tries to rectify it, he discovers that moving is a much harder proposition than he had anticipated.

His whole body feels pleasantly heavy and numb and his thoughts are fuzzy and out of focus. It is not too bad, in fact if he could only drag Gar closer, he'd be happy to stay like that for a long time and just... bask? 

Yeah, bask. That's the word. 

It seems like a smart thing to do right now, to curl around Gar's warmth and enjoy.

He twitches ineffectively, but that is enough to attract Gar's attention.

"Hey... Welcome back to the land of the living." he whispers, brushing his fingers against Maul's hand in a tingling, gentle caress.

"You blacked out for a while. Are you alright now?" he adds.

It takes him a few tries but eventually he manages to reply.

"Yeah, all good."

His voice is a mess, hoarse and raspy and suddenly he remembers with awful clarity how loud he was just a few moment before.

"If your mom hadn't heard us before, she must have now," Gar confirms, a wide, cheeky grin on his face.

"Good thing she doesn't seem the type to be easily traumatised," he jokes, but all the reaction Maul can muster even now that his body has decided to cooperate is to half-heartedly slap his arm and pull him close enough to silence him with a kiss.

"Please don't talk about my mother when we're... like this. It's not the kind of mental association I wish to make," he warns, eventually, once Gar has settled next to him, pressed as close as they can physically manage, his head on Maul's shoulder.

"Duly noted," Gar agrees, practically purring as Maul runs his fingers through his fine white-blond hair over and over, scratching his scalp with the barest hint of fingernails.

Sleep has never come easy to him, but now wrapped in his lover's warm, tight embrace, feeling his heartbeat reverberate against his own skin and the Living Force that permeates Dathomir cocooning them both, it seems pointless to try and fight the bone-deep relaxation that is flooding through him.

He feels safe and cherished. 

He feels at home.

He's exactly where he belongs, finally.


End file.
